Mohamed Abdiwahab | AFP | Getty Images
A soldiers checks the area where a suicide bomber from Somalia’s Shebab insurgents killed at least 12 people and wounded 27 others, on September 8, 2014, by ramming a vehicle packed with explosives into a convoy of African Union troops in Mogadishu.
The U.S. military said it killed more than 100 Islamist militants in Somalia on Tuesday when it launched an airstrike against the al Shabaab group, which is allied with al-Qaeda.
The military’s Africa Command said the strike was carried out on a camp 125 miles northwest of the capital, Mogadishu and that the United States would continue to target
militants.
The strike was done in coordination with Somalia’s federal government, the Pentagon said.
U.S. air strikes killing such a large number of militants in Somalia are rare, but not unprecedented. In March 2016, a U.S. air strike killed more than 150 al Shabaab fighters in Somalia.
Al Shabaab is fighting to topple Somalia’s Western-backed transitional federal government and impose its own rule on the Horn of Africa country.
Al Shabaab has lost control of most of Somalia’s cities and towns since it was pushed out of Mogadishu in 2011. But it retains a strong presence in parts of the south and center and
carries out gun and bomb attacks.
“Al-Shabaab has publicly committed to planning and conducting attacks against the U.S. and our partners in the region,” the U.S. military statement said.
